Snowboard bindings secure a snowboarder's foot onto his or her snowboard. Current bindings are effective during snowboarding, but still cumbersome to bind to a foot.
The rear snowboard binding needs to be unlatched often, unlike ski bindings. This is because of the nature of most chair lifts. Upon boarding a chair lift, the rear foot needs to be removed from the snow board binding and reattached after exiting the chairlift. The reattachment of the rear foot into the rear binding is preferably done rapidly and efficiently. Upon chairlift egress, the snowboarder typically slides down a slope with the front foot bound and the rear foot free. The snowboarder must stop to re-attach the binding prior to commencing further down-hill travel.
Difficulty is found when the snowboard binding strap overlays the area where the foot is to be inserted. This requires the snowboarder to bend over and physically remove the binding strap then insert the foot. This may sound simple, but when one is wearing bulky snow pants and a thick jacket, bending is not easy. On a slippery snow-covered hill there may be movement of the snowboard down the hill during this process. Accordingly it takes a special degree of skill to efficiently move the binding strap from the foot area, insert the foot into the binding while bent over, and to attach the binding strap. Both novices and experienced boarders recognize the cumbersome nature of re-attaching the binding every time a chairlift is used.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,679,515 B2 to Carrasca discloses a mechanism that helps the binding strap sets to more likely be free from the foot area. In particular, each binding strap set includes two sides. One side has a buckle and another side has ribs that engage the buckle. A hinge attaches the side with the buckle to the snowboard binding. The hinge enables the one side of the binding strap to flay open and thus enable the foot to be placed into the foot area of the binding.
While this represents a step forward in the art of binding straps, several drawbacks of this design are apparent. In particular there is a possibility when the binding strap is open such as during an exit from the chairlift that it could interfere with stability of the snowboard. There is also a possibility that the hinged side of the binding strap could flop inwards and cover the foot area thus providing little benefit to a snowboarder that must bend over and remove the strap from the foot area. A third drawback is that the hinge is in line with the strap. Every time the strap is tightened stress is endured by the hinge this creates a situation where either failure of the hinge is possible or very robust hinges are required.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,487,992 B2 to Pascal et al. discloses a pivoting binding strap hinge that biases a snowboard strap into the open position. While the pivoting binding strap hinge performs multiple functions, it also suffers from the drawback that the pivot mechanism and biasing mechanism are in line with the strap. This causes the mechanisms to endure stress applied by the strap.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,597,318 B2 to Hall discloses a strap design for snowboard bindings. Each strap is bifurcated with materials of varying thicknesses to enable the strap to naturally bias into an open position. This also represents a step forward in the art of snowboard bindings however, there are drawbacks. One limitation is that the width of the binding strap near where it's mounted to the snowboard binding is much greater than the width of a normal strap. This is cumbersome.
What is desired is a better way to bias a snowboard binding strap into an open position. It is also desired is a way of biasing the snowboard binding strap into an open position which is reliable, not cumbersome, and that can retrofit on existing snowboard binding straps.